Science Fiction, Fantasy and Comics Radio

June M. Moffatt died peacefully in her sleep May 31, 2018. She was one of the central figures in science fiction fandom for decades, and well loved by everyone who knew her. Here is a eulogy written by one of the fans to whom she was closest.

From the Facebook page of Connor Freff Cochran:

June Moffatt — the most important woman in the world to me, other than my wife and daughter — died peacefully in her sleep yesterday evening. She was 92 years old.

June M. Moffat, pictured here with her late husband Len.

In 1969, just a few months shy of turning 15, I discovered science fiction fandom and fanzines. This was a world-wide communications network running on paper and postage stamps, the geek culture ancestor of today’s social media. Participation in it expanded my universe exponentially. Fanzines led to learning that the world’s oldest SF fan group, the Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society (shorthanded as LASFS, and pronounced lahss-fuss), met weekly at Palms Park in Los Angeles, just 43 miles away. I couldn’t yet get to these meetings on my own, but I could participate with the group’s APA (Amateur Press Association) by mail. June was the person who made this possible. When she found out I wanted to join in the fun, remotely, she volunteered to make that possible. Every Thursday night she would collect a copy of the week’s APA-L compilation for me. Every Friday morning she would mail it off. And every Monday I would mail back to her the typed-up ditto masters for my own L-zine, full of my own original material and comments on everyone else’s L-zines, which she would run off at work and take to the next LASFS meeting to be added to that week’s compilation. (For my L-zine title I went to the dictionary and chose the word abecedarian, which means “beginner.”)

I finally met June and her husband Len in person when I found a way to get to the 1970 Westercon, in Santa Barbara. There is no way to adequately explain what followed. Basically, they adopted me.

Entirely on their own — it wasn’t my suggestion — June and Len decided to drive an extra 150 miles every Thursday in order to come collect me from my home in Placentia, CA, take me out to dinner and to LASFS with them, then return me home again before finally going back to their own place in Downey. They did this without fail for months. In addition, I would also stay with them from time to time for entire weekends, so we could attend fannish social events together. And talk, and talk, and talk. Our conversations were wide-ranging and endless.

Once I got a driver’s license, June and Len didn’t have to come collect me for Thursday night LASFS meetings any more. But the weekend visits continued.

When I left home at 17, and needed a place to stay while figuring out what to do next, it was June and Len I turned to. As the years passed we always stayed in touch, and I visited as regularly as I could. When Terri and I got married, her parents came from Denver to be at our weekend-long retreat/ceremony, and June and Len came up from southern California as their equivalents on my side of the event.

In every way that matters, other than the act of physical birth. June Moffatt was my mom. She taught me what it felt like to be loved and believed in. And she surely knew how much I loved her.

Go safe and gentle wherever it is we go, June. Say hello to Len for me. And, if possible, save a seat somewhere nearby, so we can laugh and joke and smile together again when I follow you on the path.

Thank you for … everything.

Reposted by permission from the Facebook page of Connor Freff Cochran, writer, artist, musician, producer, and June Moffatt’s “number three son” (according to June).